The murder of an African American youth in rural Alabama has gone unpunished, unsolved and uninvestigated for almost twenty years. But that changes when Nashville Times reporter Matt Harper meets an idealistic blue blood bent on discovering the truth. Harper undertakes the investigation despite the opposition of his publisher, violent threats from mysterious forces, a break-up with his fiancee and his father's cancer diagnosis. Deadline is a story of murder, family, race, and of redemption - for a small Southern town and for Matt Harper.